Hemostasis in spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage

To comprehensively examine changes in the hemostatic systems early after spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and to assess the relationships between those changes and neurological findings, computed tomographic findings, and clinical outcomes, we reviewed 167 patients who were admitted within 24 hours of the onset of SAH. Blood was taken from all of the patients at admission for detailed examinations of the hemostatic systems. The following results were obtained: 1) the levels of the thrombin-antithrombin complex (elevation indicating the activation fo the blood coagulation system), plasmin-antiplasmin complex, and D-dimer (elevation indicating the activation of the fibrinolytic system) significantly increased with the neurological severity, amount of subarachnoid clot, and severity of clinical outcome; 2) the levels of the thrombin-antithrombin complexes and plasmin-antiplasmin complexes were significantly higher in patients with intracerebral or intraventricular hematomas than in patients without those hematomas; 3) in each of almost all the neurological and computed tomographic grades, the levels of the thrombin-antithrombin complexes were significantly higher in the patients with poor outcomes than in those with good outcomes; 4) the poor outcome rate significantly increased with neurological severity and the amount of subarachnoid clot. These data suggest that the activation of the blood coagulation system as well as of the fibrinolytic system occurred early in the course of SAH and that these systems were activated to a greater extent with the severity of neurological grades, computed tomographic findings, and clinical outcome.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)